Chapter 7 (61)
82 | THE SENTENCES, BOOK 3
2. AUGUSTINE, ON JOHN. For as the Apostle says, we have been reconciled to God by Christ's death: "This is not to be understood as if Christ reconciled us to God in such a way that he now began to love those
~whom he used to hate, as an enemy is reconciled to an enemy, so that afterwards they become friends who previously hated each other; but we were reconciled to God who already loved us. For he did not begin to love us from the moment when we were reconciled to him by the blood of the Son, but from before the creation of the world, before we were anything at all."*—How then were we reconciled to God, who already loved us? "Because of sin, we were enemies to God, who had only love toward us, even when we acted on our enmity by working iniquity against him.'""
—AUGUSTINE, IN HIS BOOK ON THE TRINITY: "And so we were enemies to God, as sins are enemies to righteousness; once sins are remitted, such enmities come to an end, and they whom he himself justifies are reconciled to the just one."
3. And so Christ is called mediator because, as intermediary between God and men, he reconciles them to God. He reconciles by removing the offences of men from God's sight, that is, by taking away the sins by which God was offended and we were his enemies.
4. QUESTION. But since it is not the Son alone, but also the Father and the Holy Spirit, who takes away sins, remission of which serves to reconcile us with God, why is the Son alone called mediator? For concerning the Father, it is read that he reconciled the world to himself. As the Apostle says: God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.' And so, since the Father reconciles, why is he not called mediator?—-ANSWER.
Because he is not an intermediary between God and men, nor did he have in himself those sacraments by faith in, and imitation of, which we may be justified, that is, reconciled with God. And so, it was the whole Trinity that reconciled us by the use of power, namely by the erasure of sins; but the Son alone did so by the fulfillment of obedience, in whom, according to his human nature, were accomplished those things through which those who believe and imitate him are justified.
Chapter 7 (61) 1. ACCORDING TO WHICH NATURE IS HE MEDIATOR. And so he is called mediator according to his humanity, not according to his divinity. "For 3Rom. 5, 10.
"Augustine, /n Joannem, tr. 110 n6.
*Tbid.
°Augustine, De Trinitate, bk 13 c16 n21.
12 Corn, 19.
Distinction XIX | 83 he is not mediator between God and God, since God is one;' but between God and man, as between two extremes, because there can only be an intermediary between two different things."'—-AUGUSTINE, IN SOME SERMON: "And so he is mediator insofar as he is man; for insofar as he is
God, he is not mediator, but equal to the Father, the same as the Father, and one God with the Father."' And so he mediates between men and the triune God according to his human nature, in which he bore those things by which we are reconciled to the triune God.—AUGUSTINE, IN HIS BOOK
OF THE CONFESSIONS: And according to the same nature, "he has something like God, and something like men," which was fitting for a mediator, "lest being in all things like men, he should be far from God; or if in all things like God, he should be far from man, and so would not be a mediator. And so Christ appeared, as the true mediator between mortal sinners and the immortal just one: mortal with men, just with God."*
"By his infirmity, he was close to us, ... by righteousness, to God. And so rightly is he called mediator, because between the immortal God and mortal man there is the God man, reconciling man to God: insofar as he is man, he is mediator; insofar as he is the Word, he is not an intermediary, because he is one with God the Father."
2. VIGILIUS, AGAINST EUTYCHES: "And so, 0 heretics, if Christ, according to you, only had one nature, how shall he be in the middle? Unless he is intermediate in such a way that he is God according to the nature of his divinity and man according to the nature of his humanity, how will human realities be reconciled to the divine ones in him? For in his coming, he first joined human and divine realities in himself by the joining of the two natures in one person; then, by his death, he reconciled all the faithful with God,"® so that "those who, by believing, loved Christ's humility and, by loving, imitated it, were healed from impiety."
3. HE MAKES A BRIEF SUMMATION OF THE MEANING OF WHAT HAS BEEN
EXPLAINED ABOVE. See, we have here come to see to some extent why Christ alone is called mediator of God and men; and according to which nature he mediates, namely the human one; and with whom he mediates, namely the triune God. For he reconciled us to the Trinity by his death, by which he also redeemed us from slavery to the devil. As Peter says, we
'Gal. 3, 20.
? Augustine, /n Epistolam ad Galatas, n24.
>Augustine, Sermo 293, n7.
"Augustine, Confessiones, bk 10 cc42-43, nn67-68.
°Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 2, on Ps. 29, nl.
°Vigilius, Contra Eutychen, bk 5 n15.
7Augustine, /n Epistolam ad Galatas, n24.